Strictly speaking, the Hydra soldier's description wasn't entirely accurate—Peter wasn't riding Bob.
He was strapped back-to-back with Bob, bound tightly together with webbing. To prevent Bob from causing trouble, he had even bound Bob's arms along with him.
That way, he could take Bob along while fighting.
There was just one small problem.
"Spider-Man, can you run a bit slower? I... I'm not wearing shoes!"
Feeling his heels dragging along the floor, Bob realized this seemingly perfect solution had a massive flaw: he was much taller than Peter. This left his feet scraping along the ground, causing him no small amount of suffering.
Peter offered a single, hasty "Sorry," before breaking through the encirclement of five Hydra armored soldiers roughly on par with Iron Monger and leaping straight into the elevator shaft.
Naturally, he was greeted by Bob's piercing scream. But that was the least of their concerns. The armored soldiers were equipped with thrusters and quickly gave chase. Clinging to the shaft wall, Peter glanced upward and warned Bob, "We need to climb up a few hundred meters, Bob."
"Oh, uh, I mean, okay."
Bob nodded, peering down into the seemingly bottomless elevator shaft. "I thought we'd have to climb up back-to-back, supporting each other. This is going much better than I expected."
Peter took a deep breath and sprinted upward. At that moment, the Hydra armored soldiers charged up from below, raising their weapons to unleash a barrage of lasers, missiles, and energy blasts.
Mid-air, Peter dodged every single attack with Bob strapped to his back.
"Where are Legion Ultron's guys when you actually need them?! I was counting on him to save the world!"
Muttering under his breath, Peter fired a strand of webbing downward, blanketing the sensors of one armored suit. Blinded, the suit plummeted in freefall. With no time to linger, Peter continued his rapid ascent.
"Uh, heads up? Looks like something is..."
Bob managed to blurt out a warning just as he realized what was coming down. Peter's Spider-Sense had already picked it up, prompting him to evade instantly.
The fast-falling object was an elevator car. Unaware of its contents, Peter simply watched as it hurtled downward while using his bio-electricity to constantly scan it.
In that fraction of a second, Peter realized the entire elevator car was packed with explosives.
"Holy crap!"
"What is it? What happened?!" Bob asked in a panic, looking around. Without a word, Peter turned Anti-Venom into a sharp blade, severing the elevator cables in the nick of time. Below them, the elevator detonated into a massive, blinding fireball.
Bob's mouth hung open as he watched the explosion, a wave of lingering fear washing over him. "My god, packing explosives right in the elevator shaft. Oh, my... gagh..."
"Are you afraid of heights?"
"I think a little bit."
"If you're afraid of heights, don't look down! We need to keep moving!"
Peter immediately shifted his pace, using the Anti-Venom symbiote to wall-bounce back and forth up the elevator shaft. Bob's shrieks echoed through the shaft once more.
As for the Hydra armored soldiers below, they could only stare helplessly as Spider-Man made his escape.
However, enemies weren't just lurking below—they were coming from above too. More and more Hydra soldiers poured out, lunging at Peter and Bob. Looking up, Bob could do nothing but scream continuously.
Peter, on the other hand, paid it no mind. He knocked a Hydra soldier down with a swift swipe of his claws and pushed toward the exit.
"Hang in there, Bob, we're almost there!"
At that moment, Peter had no idea how close Madame Viper was to a total meltdown.
She had discovered Bob's existence—a man whom that idiot Oyama had explicitly reported as dead, but who was very much alive. In other words, Oyama's 1,000x potent Erskine Serum had actually succeeded! Someone had truly survived!
Which brought up a major question: where was Oyama now?
The answer: Oyama had already been purged by Hydra for getting all the test subjects killed. By now, he was likely reduced to a pile of ash—the kind that couldn't even be revived if thrown into Earth-2149.
So Viper was left taking out her rage on a ghost.
"That absolute fool! A complete and utter moron! He didn't even bother to properly check if that damn test subject was actually dead! Damn it!"
Viper took a deep breath, staring at the screen showing Spider-Man and Bob rapidly escaping—especially the latter.
She knew keeping the two of them here was impossible now. For reasons unknown, Spider-Man's baseline stats and combat capabilities had improved significantly compared to when he fought Carnage.
Even so, she was determined to drive that blasted spider out!
"Initiate the base's self-destruct sequence!"
Viper barked in sheer rage, "Blow them to pieces!"
However, a subordinate delivered even worse news: "Leader, all our soldiers have lost signal!"
By then, Peter had already carried Bob out. They burst through the building's main entrance, only for Peter to be greeted by an exhausting sight. Dozens of Hydra armored soldiers lay strewn across the ground outside, all of their life signals completely extinguished.
This wasn't the work of Peter's allies, however. Standing right before them were the Mechanical Avengers of Legion Ultron.
Bob, clearly unfamiliar with Ultron, asked naively, "Oh, uh, what's..."
"Those are bad news, Bob. Don't move."
Peter took a deep breath. He could go invisible, but he couldn't turn Bob invisible along with him. Things were getting tricky.
[Unidentified entity detected.]
The Mechanical Avengers quickly noticed them and turned their gaze over. Peter's heart tightened as he prepared to pull back and gain some distance.
Just then, thunder roared across the sky, and lightning flashed. The Mechanical Avengers scattered like frightened birds. Thor descended from the heavens, having finally finished off the grunt forces and arrived in time to lend Peter a hand.
"Glad to see you unharmed, Spider-Man."
Thor drifted over, his eyes falling on Bob attached to Peter's back. "And this is..."
"This is Bob. He's... a survivor of Hydra's human experimentation."